They Borked a Guilty Man

Robert Bork, R.I.P.: My line on the late judge and scholar: They Borked a guilty man. … Bork wasn’t nearly as rigorous or coherent a legal thinker as he was cracked up to be, and in his desperation to get confirmed he perversely embraced some of the more bogus doctrines of liberal legalism (in particular, the “reasonable basis” test of constitutionality, exploded in a famous Yale Law Journal note by Prof. Robert Nagel). The Senate decided not to defer to the President and to simply consider whether someone with Bork’s views was someone they wanted on the Court. That sensible standard–plus the filibuster rule–has been one of the main things standing between us and Justice Tribe. …